Dollar Store Hooker Makeup, Japanese Edition

Who’s ready for another adventure in cheap but (possibly) fabulous makeup?!

When I mention my love of visiting Lush at the Westlake Center in downtown Seattle, I always have people tell me that I need to head up the escalator and visit Daiso Japan. They often refer to it as the “Asian Dollar Store,” though to be more accurate everything is priced at $1.50 with the dubious notation of “unless marked.” As I was searching, though, I didn’t see too many items that were priced above the baseline, and none of the makeup items seemed to be. Since I recently posted about the goodies I bought to try out the Dollar Store Makeup Challenge (if you missed it, you can find it HERE), I figured I would pick up some of the items on offer at Daiso Japan and see if they stacked up to the random quality I’ve come to expect from cheap af makeup!

If I’m being totally honest here, I saw these lipsticks and they were the reason I decided to do this post. The brand is KleanColor, and I had actually seen on Amazon a listing for a 12 pack of fun-colored lipstick shades (that included the green, blue, and pink shades shown above as well as orange, purple, yellow, a darker green, etc.) for about $12 and I was tempted to order them and see if they were worth it. This gave me the opportunity to try them out for even less than that, which I was all about. The red shade was from a different collection that included more “everyday” colors: pinks, browns, reds.

I was surprised at how much color payoff you get with these lipsticks – often with colors like these, you get more of a color wash. I was especially curious to see how the blue would perform. As you can see in the swatches above, all 4 shades came out with good color payoff. The green seemed the most sheer, and for all of them I did have to give it several swipes to get the coverage but not anything that would cause me concern. They didn’t have any sort of strong smell, so I was glad they didn’t have that gross waxy smell that cheap lipsticks sometimes have. Overall I was pretty impressed with these. I may be adding that Amazon collection to my kit sometime in the near future – and if I do, I’ll make sure any duplicate shades end up in a giveaway!

Next up were two eyeshadow palettes. Compared to what I usually find in Dollar Store selections, these palettes have super bright and vivid shades. The worry there is that brights can be really hard to do, especially in a matte, without getting chalky. And I’m not sure exactly what constitutes a “wet eyeshadow” when this is clearly a pressed powder. Maybe it’s because these are shimmer shadows instead of mattes? Who knows. I was just excited to see some really fantastic colors and I really hoped that they would look as fabulous on the skin as they did in the packaging.

For the Wet Shadow kit, I was actually really impressed. I saw quite a bit of powder fallout, and the wavy shape of the pans actually made it hard to get the sponge applicator in and swipe it back and forth, but once I applied – look at that pigment! Damn! I included a shot of the palette so you could see what it looked like after use – definitely a fair amount of fallout, which is a waste, obvi – but for that price I’m actually really impressed with how well these worked. These were creamy and blendable and would play well with other shadows as well.

For the Matte Shadows…well, not so much. As you can see, they do give a fairly even application and aren’t as chalky as some shadows, but I gave them a little bit of work, and even with multiple swipes, this was the darkest application I got. They had less fallout, though I would have taken some fallout in place of such lackluster color performance! I didn’t swipe all of the colors in either palette, but I tried to do a range of shades to give you a sense of how different colors performed.

So basically what I’m saying is that if you are going to shop the Daiso for your vivid eye palettes, stick to the “wet” shadows because apparently “wet” is Japanese for “actually has some damn pigment and will look fierce on your face.” Or something like that.

I didn’t bother to do a swatch of this jumbo purple pencil, but I have to say that I was really impressed, and this is coming from someone who used to hate all things pencil (except for my trusty MAC liner pencil in Chestnut!). This one applies a gorgeous cornflower blue shade very evenly and it has a great silver sparkle to it. I blended it a little on the back of my hand and it was workable, and when I was in the store they ad several classic shades like white, black, and a deep chocolate brown, so these would be a great option for someone looking to add a little glam to their kit on a severe budget. The only real off-putting thing was the smell – it had that sad waxy smell that old (or some cheap) lipsticks get. The good news is that since it’s eyeshadow it won’t be anywhere near your smell holes, but still – a lady likes nice things to smell nice.

I imagine that these will be a bitch to put on and will look all sorts of crazy over my ugly, stubby blonde lashes. I do not care. I do not give one single fuck. They are adorable lashes with stars on them, and I had to have them. This was not, I repeat, not optional.

In conclusion, I found Daiso’s makeup selection, as limited as it was, to be not all that different from regular Dollar Tree makeup. There were different brands – KleanColor and Santee instead of Sassy + Chic and Wet’N’Wild – but like any other bargain option, it’s good to do a little experimenting as some products will actually surprise you with their level of quality, and some will be just as bad as you feared if not maybe just a little more. Which is also true of the drugstore brands, and it’s true of the luxury brands. Sorry, kittens, you can’t win ’em all. So what you need is a good attitude and a sense of adventure. There’s treasure out there – you just have to be willing to find it.